Birth injuries and birth defects can result in permanent medical conditions that require expensive and long-term treatment for your child. Thus, pursuing compensation against the physician responsible is necessary to seek justice and obtain a financial settlement. However, parents may not be able to file a medical malpractice lawsuit for birth defects. What is the difference between a birth injury and a birth defect?

Birth Injuries Occur During Labor or Delivery

Birth injuries are often preventable, and have several causes. If the doctor pulls on the baby the wrong way, uses forceps or medical instruments improperly, administers the wrong amount of medication to the mother, or performs other unnecessary or incorrect procedures during labor and delivery, the child could suffer harm. You have the right to file a medical malpractice lawsuit for injuries your baby suffered due to your doctor’s negligence or carelessness.

If you have been injured by a negligent healthcare professional, you have the right to pursue compensation in a medical malpractice claim. However, many people may not think their situation warrants a lawsuit, or they may not be aware of their rights. Our firm provides compassionate legal assistance to those who have suffered from the carelessness of physicians and nursing staff.

In general, there are several situations where you may be able to obtain compensation for medical malpractice. These include:

• You receive improper treatment
• You are misdiagnosed
• You suffer injuries during surgery or medical procedures
• You suffer an overdose or harmful side effects from prescription drugs
• You are not properly treated for your condition, and it worsens

Surgical errors, anesthesia errors, and misdiagnosis can result in serious injuries that require more treatment. Doctors, nurses, surgeons, medical specialists, and anesthesiologists owe a duty of care to patients. This involves providing adequate and effective treatments to improve your quality of life. If you are injured or your condition grows worse because of improper or poor medical care, you have the right to file a medical malpractice lawsuit. Depending on the situation, you may be able to receive compensation for medical expenses, pain and suffering, lost present and future wages, and other damages.

Discuss Your Case with Our Philadelphia Medical Malpractice Attorneys

At Shrager & Sachs, we are committed to helping injured clients seek justice from those responsible. If your doctor or healthcare provider caused your injury, we can analyze the facts of your situation and help you file a medical malpractice claim. Doctors are relied upon to provide safe, effective, and thorough treatment to patients. However, when they negligently fail to do so, they must be held accountable in court.

Contact us today for a free consultation.

Commercial trucks can weigh up to 80,000 pounds when fully loaded. Thus, if they cause an accident, serious injuries or death could result. Trucking companies and truckers are responsible to inspect the truck before departure to ensure all necessary components are safe and functional. If a tire blows out, and you are injured as a result, you may pursue compensation against a variety of parties.

You may file a claim against:

• The truck driver
• The trucking company
• The truck maintenance provider
• The tire manufacturer

If the truck driver or trucking company failed to perform adequate inspection of the truck before the journey, they may be held liable in court. Some trucking companies use outside maintenance companies to service their trucks. If the maintenance crew failed to inspect the truck tires, or they performed improper maintenance and caused the blowout, they may be held liable for your injuries.

State officials have revoked the licenses of two personal care homes in Lehigh and Northampton County over the past few days, both of which have been linked to resident deaths.

Back in April, 84-year old veteran Daniel Scanlan died as a result of “complications of blunt force trauma” after being pushed by another person living at Arden Courts of Old Orchard. Although a staff member witnessed the incident and reported it to the executive director, the director failed to mention the push in a report to the state. After the coroner’s office released the certificate of death, Mr. Scanlan’s death was ruled a homicide. As a result, the state revoked the facilities license for failure to comply with the department’s regulations, gross incompetence, negligence, misconduct in operating the facility, and fraud and deceit in attempting to obtain a license.

Robert Sachs, Esq. of Shrager & Sachs is representing the family of Mr. Scanlan to investigate and pursue a claim against Arden Courts of Old Orchard. The company operates over 50 facilities across the country for people diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease or related dementia, according to their website.

When it comes to medical malpractice cases, injured patients have the burden of proving how a medical professional’s negligence more likely than not led to their preventable injuries. While medical negligence can take numerous forms, it is generally defined by law as a health care provider’s failure to administer treatment in accordance to accepted medical standards – which means that any reasonable and skillful medical professional under the same or similar circumstances would have acted differently to avoid harm.

As this legal definition makes clear, what constitutes medical negligence can sometimes be a matter open to argument. Were there medically acceptable reasons why a doctor failed to make a diagnosis of a patient’s condition? Could a doctor reasonably have foreseen complications experienced by a specific patient? The answers to these questions can vary from case to case, which is why it is often difficult for injured patients to understand when their medical professional’s care amounted to negligence, and whether they have a viable medical malpractice claim. However, there are some types of medical errors that always constitute malpractice. These are known as “never events.”

Motorcycles are considered motor vehicles by law, and riders have the same rights and responsibilities as any driver. However, due to their smaller size and the lack of protection they provide riders, motorcyclists are among the most vulnerable motorists on our roads. As such, riders have greater needs to remain vigilant and defensive when sharing public roads and highways with other vehicles.

Unfortunately, as we have seen throughout the years representing victims of auto accidents across Philadelphia and the state on Pennsylvania, even the most vigilant riders can suffer harm when others around them are negligent – often with devastating consequences. When preventable injuries occur, including catastrophic injuries, riders have every right to pursue legal action against the at-fault party, hold them accountable for their failures, and recover financial compensation for their damages.

Northampton County Coroner, Zachary Lysek, has ruled that Daniel Scanlan, an 84-year-old veteran and long-time resident of the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania, died on April 4, 2017 as a result of “complications of blunt force head trauma” which occurred at Arden Courts of Old Orchard in Bethlehem Township, Pennsylvania. The certificate of death from the coroner’s office states that Mr. Scanlan was “pushed by another resident causing him to fall and strike his head.” As a result, the coroner marked “homicide” as the “manner of death” on the certificate of death issued on September 14, 2017.

The children of Mr. Scanlan have retained Robert Sachs, Esquire, of Shrager & Sachs, a nationally-recognized nursing home and assisted living negligence lawyer from Philadelphia, PA, to investigate and pursue a claim against Arden Courts of Old Orchard. Arden Courts is owned by HCR Manor Care, Inc., which is owned by the Carlyle Group, one of the nation’s largest private equity groups.

Attorneys can help with a wide variety of injury cases. A personal injury attorney may be able to help if you have been injured at work, by a doctor, by an ill-meaning assailant, because of the negligence of another person, or for any other reason. Serious injuries typically result in large medical costs, significant time out of work, long-term physical damage, and other lasting negative effects for the injured party. If you have suffered a serious injury that was not your fault, you may be able to file a personal injury suit in order to hold the responsible parties accountable and receive the compensation you need to cover your costs and get back to your life.

Workers Injured on the Job

If you have been injured on the job, it is especially important that you speak to a personal injury lawyer before accepting workers’ compensation benefits. In many cases, employers can provide workers with some financial help to cover immediate injury-related costs, but workers’ comp is typically not substantial enough to cover the cost of a serious injury. Be advised that once you access workers’ comp benefits and payments, you are no longer legally permitted to file a personal injury lawsuit, even if the amount of workers’ comp you receive ultimately falls short of what you require. If you have been injured on the job, get in touch with an experienced Philadelphia personal injury attorney immediately.

In a continuing trend of naming bills misleadingly, the Protecting Access to Care Act (HR 1215) was passed in the Republican-majority Congress on June 28, 2017. This bill places a cap on the maximum amount a patient can sue for damages in a medical malpractice suit. HR 1215 is currently being considered by the Senate, so it has not yet gone into effect.

However, this is a bill Republicans favor. If the Senate goes the same way as Congress, those who are victims of severe negligence will only be able to sue for up to $250,000 in noneconomic damages, despite any additional care needed to deal with the repercussions.

Proponents of the bill argue it will save the health care industry thousands of dollars, making health care affordable for more people, but this assertion is dubious. Even if medical insurers do save millions of dollars, this is no guarantee they will lower their premiums to allow better health care for low-income individuals who can’t afford it. Likewise, this bill targets the victims of malpractice who have suffered the most. Those who require extensive amounts of health care, rehabilitation, and who can no longer work after their injuries will need much more than $250,000 to survive.

In one example, written about by F. Paul Bland Jr. in on The Hill website, Kathleen Astleford is one such victim. In 2018, she was diagnosed with cancer in the right tonsil. She was referred to a Dr. Turrisi, who incorrectly noted she had been diagnosed with cancer on the left side of her tonsil, rather than the right. He then recommended she undergo 35 radiation therapy treatments, after which she would be cancer free.

If you are involved in a car accident, you may think you are unharmed just because you don’t feel any pain. However, sometimes your injuries may not present themselves until days after the crash. Such injuries include soft tissue damage to muscles, ligaments, and tendons, as well as concussions and whiplash. If you wait to see a doctor, insurance companies will try to prove that the injuries did not result from the crash. With this in mind, you can still pursue compensation for injuries that are not immediately apparent.